Retrograde
by lumiere42
Summary: How the first year of Reid and Maeve's relationship unfolds. AU where Maeve emerges from the events of "Zugzwang" alive, but with PTSD and other lingering aftereffects. Continuous with earlier stories "Tactile Issues" and "Future Plans" (note: Reid has been officially diagnosed autistic and Maeve knows it).
1. First Night

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own _Criminal Minds_ or anything else copyrighted herein. _Retrograde_ is how things would have happened if I did. Homage, no $$$ made from any of it.

_January 16:_

The bang is huge, shattering, sending her hearing away down a long buzzing tunnel, and then there's a horrible wet _spatter_ against her left side and something crumpled and limp falls on her. She closes her eyes, _no, no I want to be gone now I can't_, and there's a lot of vibration in the ground around her like feet running and the faintest distant shouting through the ringing in her ears. Someone is pulling the crumpled thing off her, there are hands on her shoulders and she squints up into the light and confusion. Spencer, kneeling beside her, dark eyes wide and frightened and his mouth moving. She can't understand what he's saying, and she can't make her own words get from brain to mouth, so she reaches up and grabs his arm just to let him know she's okay. There's blood running down her arm that isn't hers, splotches of tissue too, and she just manages to comprehend what that means before graying out.

She surfaces back to awareness in the ambulance, scratchy wool blanket and too many too bright lights, her hearing still full of roaring. There's a lot of chatter rising and falling outside, the sounds of agitated conversation and crackling police radios. Some businesslike young EMT inspecting her head, shining a scope in her eyes, asking questions she is only able to respond to after a long lag. The quick sting of an injection in the curve of her right elbow, then he finally withdraws. Cold. She's cold and shaking and there's blood drying on her. She pulls the blanket over her head and curls up on the gurney, as tightly as she can.

"Maeve. Hey, Maeve?"

Someone is shaking her, very gently, and she pokes her head out of the blanket. Spencer, still in Kevlar, leaning over her. Still looking very agitated, but his voice is calmer and clearer now. The sound in her ears is ebbing to a faint rush.

"Hey. They're pretty much done here." His hand lingers on her shoulder. "The EMT said you're okay..."

It takes so much effort to speak. "She's dead?"

"Yes."

"You're...sure?..."

"I saw them carrying her off in the body bag myself." He's cupping her hands in his now, warming them. "They're still not sure if she shot herself or if oneof the team shot her, there was crossfire, but the forensics people'll figure that out and it's not like it really matters anyway, does it?"

She laughs, a little shaky laugh that comes out more of a gasp. "I wannago home now."

"Um, about that? You won't be able to go back to your place tonight. Morgan just told me it's still an active crime scene. They should be done with it tomorrow, but _-_"He lowers his head a little, so his hair is hanging in his face and she can't quite see him. "We can take you to a hotel somewhere if you want? Or you could come to my place - it's just, it's late and the EMTs said it might not be a great idea for you to be alone tonight, in case there's some delayed aftereffects or -"

She squeezes his hands and nods, even though it makes her head hurt.

The blond woman - JJ, judging from Spencer's past description - drives them back to his place. The dashboard clock says 1:32 a.m. There's rain starting to drizzle down outside, slicking the mostly empty streets. No one says anything. Spencer is sitting in the back seat with her, staring down at his hands as he makes the same repetitive series of flickering movements with his fingers, like he's playing a small invisible harp.

She makes it out of the van and into the building's entryway just fine. Halfway up the stairs to the second-floor landing everything feels like it's _tilting_ beneath her. Spencer puts an arm around her and steers her the rest of the way.

His living room is small and dim and quiet. She sits on the couch, in the little pool of yellow light from the table lamp. He disappears down the hallway to what she assumes is the bedroom, because she hears drawer opening-and-closing sounds and brief creaking of bedsprings. Finally he emerges, with an armful of clothes.

"I'll leave these in the bathroom for you. It'_s _the first door on the left." He stands there, at the hallway's end, looking uncertain. "Do you...want to try washing what you're wearing?"

She looks down at herself, all the horrid stains drying to maroon and _damnit_, this had been one of her favorite sweaters, too. "Forget it. I'll pitch them."

He nods.

The bathroom is entirely covered in opalescent yellow tile, overhead light gleaming back at her a hundred times over. The sound of the shower running makes her ears smart again, but she turns it as hot as she can stand anyway and then just sits in the tub, spray pouring over her. Rushing water and tile gleam and Diane's blood sluicing off her, swirling down the drain in little threads. Eventually she remembers to wash herself.

The clothes Spencer left for her are old and soft, a very elderly CalTech sweatshirt with holes in the elbows and sweatpants that are almost hopelessly long on her. She has to fold up the legs to get her feet out.

He's made up a bed for her on the couch, two quilts and a pillow. She crawls between the quilts. Rain is starting to batter insistently on the window. She can hear him rummaging in the bedroom again, then running his own shower. She just manages to switch the lamp off before sleep takes her.

She wakes up screaming, fighting the blankets because they're trying to swallow her, oh God the gun is still pressed against her head and she hits something hard -

Yellow lamplight flickering on, and she's on the floor in a tangle of quilts and Spencer's there, trying to untangle and calm and hold her all at once. She grabs his shoulders and pushes her head into his chest, hard, and they just sit there like that for a long while. She's not crying, not quite, but she can hear how quick and frightened her own breathing sounds. She's vaguely aware of him rubbing her back.

She follows him back to bed without either of them actually suggesting, or even saying, anything about it. The bedroom is even darker, curtains over the window. The bed is king-size, and the comforter is so heavy its weight is almost instantly relaxing. There's a fan somewhere in here, emitting a steady _shhhh_ of white noise, and there's some kind of light-up gadget on the bedside table projecting a dense scatter of faux stars on the ceiling. She's very grateful it's not completely dark.

Spencer climbs in next to her. She's shivering, hard.

"'m cold."

"You're in shock," he whispers back. "The sedative they gave you mustbe wearing off." There's enough room in the bed that they don't have to touch, but he takes her hand anyway.

Finally, she sleeps, fitfully.

Morning, dull gray light seeping in through the curtains. She doesn't remember where she is at first, and then everything floods back and she has to just lie there for a while, letting it sink in. _This is real. She's dead. It's over._ _I can have my life back, God, I can hardly remember how to DO that_ - well, it wasn't like she had to solve all that _now_.

Spencer's asleep beside her, curled up, snoring faintly. She climbs out of bed carefully, so as not to wake him, and pads into the kitchen. There's not much here. Dirty dishes piled in the sink and empty Chinese takeout cartons on the counter, a lot of canned soup in the cupboard and microwave Indian food in the freezer. A bottle of extremely good bourbon on top of the fridge. A little hunting turns up bagels and peanut butter and a clean plate.

The newspaper thwacks against the door just as she's about to settle on the couch. She checks, then rechecks, the peephole before darting out to get it.

She reads as she eats, with a kind of stupefied wonder. Something as simple as a _paper_, she hadn't been able to subscribe or easily go out to buy one for more than a year...

The _Local_ section has an article just below the fold, _Alleged 'Stalker' Killed in FBI Shootout_, and yes it's about last night and she folds that section up and shoves it under the coffee table, without reading it.

Rustling and footsteps coming down the hall, and Spencer emerges, rumple-haired and blinking owlishly. He looks confused, and then his eyes widen and he smiles at her, this big, doofy grin.

"Hi."

"Hi." She points at the table. "Your Local section's under there. There's something in it about what happened, I just can't deal with looking at it right now."

He nods and shuffles into the kitchen area, where he clatters around making coffee. She tries to be subtle about eyeing him as he does. He's wearing green pajamas with _feet_. She hadn't known those came in adult sizes, especially for someone as tall as he was.

"Are you supposed to be at work today?" she asks.

"Hotch told me to take a couple days. We'll have to give official statements, but I've got the paperwork for that here. I can ask Garcia or JJ to stop by and get them tonight."

He brings her coffee and sits next to her. He doesn't really look at her, but that's okay. He's already explained about listening better if he doesn't have to look, and she'd rather he be able to listen.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Reborn." It's the first word that comes to mind. She hopes it doesn't sound corny, because it's _true_. "And hey, you realize what else?"

"What?"

"At least we finally got to meet."

He goggles at her and then starts laughing, and then _she _starts laughing, like she hasn't been able to in so long.


	2. Hypervigilance

_February 12:_

He pulls up outside her apartment building at 6:00. His parallel parking skills have not improved with time, and the falling darkness doesn't help. He finally manages to get situated, with the car's rear only sticking out into the street a little. He turns off the engine and waits, fidgeting with the opened-out paper clip he keeps in the cup holder.

They'd planned to go out sooner than this, but first there was a case in California and then that snowstorm that practically shut down DC for a few days. He's just glad they've been able to do this _before_ Valentine's Day, that would've been too loaded a day for a First Official Date, but it's not really doing anything to make him less nervous. He looks down at himself in the fading light. The blue sweater, warm and comfortable but maybe he should've tried to _not_ dress like an absent-minded professor - then again, she's already seen him in feety pajamas first thing in the morning, so -

The heat in the car is dissipating. He's wondering if he's supposed to go up and get her, and then there's a knock on the passenger side window and she's standing there. He leans over and opens the door.

She climbs in, in a quick puff of cold air. He's already revving the engine up again, trying to get the balky heater going, before she even puts her belt on.

"Hi."

"Hi."

He looks over at her. She's still a bit too thin and too pale, not surprising after over a year of hiding. There are small dark weary smudges beneath her eyes, and he's pretty sure fashion-critic types would say something about her striped brown coat and paisley skirt clashing, and she's wearing little pink _snow boots_...and she looks cute as hell.

"You're staring," she says.

"You're pretty."

She starts giggling, the nervous-but-pleased kind, and then he's grinning.

He just manages not to clip the back end of the car in front of them pulling out.

On the way, he listens, she talks: about how her old job was long since filled, but that's okay because she'd been thinking about going into teaching even before...everything...happened, she's busy gathering up everything she needs to start applying for that instead and it's a _pain_. There's a rapid-fire quality to her speech that he's never heard before. As they pull up to the first red light, she locks the passenger side door, with that subtle maneuver of pushing the knob down with her elbow.

The mall parking lot has a lot more cars in it than he expected on a Tuesday night. A lot more slush, too. He parks as close to the bookstore entrance as they can get, but it's still slow going walking up to the doors. His knee is twinging a bit, like it always does in this kind of weather, and she keeps looking around and then behind them.

It's blessedly warm inside, relatively quiet too (aside from the Muzak and the periodic whine of machinery in the cafe). A couple of hours in here with books and coffee, then dinner at the pizza place a few blocks away, a calm and low-key plan that he's suddenly hoping isn't seeming dorky or cheap. Then he sees how Maeve is smiling.

"I haven't been in here in _forever_," she whispers. "Or any store for very long."

"Then enjoy," he whispers back.

They wander up and down the aisles in comfortable silence, stopping to inspect interesting things. She picks out a large, unwieldy book on astronomy, and he takes two atlases, one of the U.S., the other of the world. She holds everything while he puts earplugs in. The sound of the cafe's grinder is too high-pitched for him to be able to go too near it otherwise.

She pays for two cups of coffee before he can say anything. Maybe he shouldn't let her do that, he thinks. He has no idea what state her finances are in after over a year out of work. He decides not to bring it up at this point either.

Except for a couple of very tired-looking college-student-types absorbed in their laptops, the cafe is empty. They take the back corner table.

He hasn't told Maeve that this is actually his First Date Ever. He'd figured she was probably nervous enough without knowing that. He's pretty sure, though, that 99.9% of dates _wouldn't_ consist of what they're doing: concentrating on their respective books, but periodically stopping to point out something interesting in them to each other. She shows him pictures of Martian dust devils and the methane lakes on Titan; he explains how the remarkably obvious grid patterns of the Plains states' major roads are artifacts of the first railway lines from the 1880s.

_ Parallel play_, he thinks, _people engaging in play activities in each other's presence, but not together. Except there's some reciprocity here. _

Maybe he should stop analyzing it. It seems to be working.

After a while, she gets up and heads back into the aisles. He finds a particularly nice set of seafloor maps in the world atlas. The Atlantic: shallow, sunken places like Dogger Bank, the Scilly Isles area, Rockall. He marks the Rockall page with the cardboard sleeve from his coffee cup. When Maeve comes back, he'll show her, ask if she's ever heard the Hy Brasil stories and how this place might explain them.

Eventually he checks his watch. It's slightly after 8. The pizza place is open late, but the bookstore's closing soon. He goes to put the atlases back. As he heads down the central aisle, he spots Maeve, crouched in front of the Mystery section. Good, for one horrible moment he'd wondered if she'd gotten spectacularly bored and just left...no, that was ridiculous, even if he _was_ that big a loser of a date she wouldn't be that rude.

He just remembers to pull the sleeve-marker out of the world atlas before reshelving.

When he gets back to the Mystery aisle, she's still there. Actually - _hold on_ - she hasn't moved at all, and something about her hunched posture isn't right -

She cries out when he touches her shoulder, and stares wildly up at him with huge, round eyes. Right away he sits down beside her, hoping he's not so close that it crowds her. Her knees are pulled up and her hands are pressed against her mouth, fingers braided, knuckles white. She's shaking, and breathing in little pained gasps.

"Maeve?"

"I can't - breathe," she manages. "Chest hurts. Too - big in here - "

"Can you get up?" He keeps his voice as low and calm as possible.

"Not sure. Dizzy."

"Come on." He offers her a hand. She grabs on so tightly it hurts, and he helps her up.

She sways obviously as they make their way out of the store. The woman behind the main counter stares at them, then opens her mouth like she's going to say something. He gives her the nastiest _don't even think about it_ glare he can.

Wet snow is spitting down, tinted orange in the streetlamps' glow. They get into the car, and Maeve leans forward, against the passenger-side dashboard. He turns the engine on, just for the heat, and she startles a little at the sudden sound.

"Put your head between your knees," he tells her. She does.

He's still got the cardboard sleeve in his hand, and he starts fiddling with it, twisting it, because touching her is probably not a great idea right now. "Try breathing in for a count of two, okay? Then out for the same."

She tries, whispering the numbers, and he whispers them along with her. He watches the snow falling, slowly piling on the hood and windshield. Her breathing slows with the counting.

She sits up after a few minutes, still wide-eyed and very pale.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize."

She leans back in the seat, eyes closed. "Everything just seemed really huge and loud all of a sudden, and then I couldn't breathe..."

"I think you had a panic attack."

She takes a deep breath and puts a hand over her face. "_Damnit._" She laughs, a little, tight, bitter sound. "This whole getting-back-my-life business is just not going well, huh? To say nothing of our record on dates so far."

"Hey. It's understandable. You've been...locked out of the world...for more than a year, you're not going to get used to everything again right away." He realizes she sounds so muffled because he's still got the earplugs in, so he pops them out quick, leaving them in the cup holder with the sleeve. "As for the date part...I'm just...glad you're _here_, okay?"

She nods.

"I'm assuming you're not up to going to Fiorini's."

"_No_. Not tonight."

"We could go back to my place and order in pizza instead. Watch some movies. I have all the _Star Trek_ ones, we could make fun of the special effects in the first one - or if you'd rather just go home, that's fine too."

"Your place," she says firmly. "God knows I've spent enough time in my apartment."

"My place it is." He's turning forward, about to grab the steering wheel, and then she's putting her hands on his arm and tugging just slightly, so he faces her again.

"Let me ask you something. Answer honestly." Her voice is very soft.

"What?"

"Can I kiss you?"

He can't speak, so he just nods. Her hand is on his face, tilting his chin a little, and he closes his eyes and her mouth is on his, soft sweet touch that's almost a flutter, then she draws back. His whole body tenses briefly, like it always does when he's had a serious pleasant shock, and if anything qualifies as one this does and - _wow_.

"Thanks," she says.

"No problem." His voice has gone a little swoopy-toned.

By the time they're turning out of the parking lot, he feels like he can speak levelly again, and tries. "Actually, maybe making fun of the first _Star Trek_ movie isn't so appropriate, those _were_ top-of-the-line special effects when it was made...now, the _writing_ is another matter - "


	3. Day and Night

March 14:

She can only sleep in the daytime.

The first night home after it was all over, she'd startled awake from nightmares three times. The last time ended with knocking over and smashing the little bedside lamp with her frantic, flailing groping for some, any, light source _now_. She'd sat up in the living room till dawn, then opened the curtains on every window in the apartment, so sunlight could filter in, diffused through cheap Venetian blinds. Only then was she able to sleep again, dreamlessly this time.

Her sleep cycle has gradually migrated ahead a phase or two, into a vampire-like routine of heavy, almost drugged slumber from dawn till mid-afternoon. Daylight in the room: probably messing up her levels of melatonin and God-only-knows-what-else, and pulling the blankets over her head for dimness doesn't help much.

Being able to see exactly where and when she is, and that she's really alone, immediately upon swimming up out of unconsciousness does.

Familiar brown walls, furniture put back exactly where it belongs, open closet door (she can't bear it closed) showing the neat and precise row of clothes hanging inside, clock on the bedside table showing date and time in bland red numbers. Everything _ordered _and locating her in space and time, and you couldn't see all that waking up in the dark, right?

She still hasn't returned Spencer's spare clothes. She'd stayed in them for almost three days afterward, while she ran all her clothes and every other washable item in the place through the laundry and cleaned _everything_. Irrational, ridiculous, and she knew it and still carried on purging every possible invisible trace of Diane's presence from her home.

Sometimes she sleeps with his sweatshirt, curling it against her face.

She hopes he doesn't ask for it back any time soon.

Even with every window uncovered, the apartment is still too small and too close and she knows every crack in the plaster and pattern in the tile by now. Her email inbox is empty, no acknowledgement from the jobs she's applied to or any of the friends she's written. Out of everyone she knew before this all started, only two people have contacted her back so far, her old supervisor (kind tone, offering references) and Stephanie from the lab (a friendly but slightly bewildered note with a distinct flavor of _I really don't know what to say_).

She supposes the story got around among friends and colleagues.

She wishes her name hadn't been mentioned in the newspaper reports. Google's probably killing her job search right now. Not for the first time, she wishes her parents had named her something slightly less unusual.

The fridge is empty too, so she goes grocery shopping, timing it for an hour before the buses and streets and stores crowd with people on their way home from work. More people in this store right now than she's seen in person for the entire last year, people and echoey noise and the visual gabble of rows and rows, boxes and cans, aisle after aisle...

She's gripping the cart handle with white-knuckled hands and reminding herself to breathe slowly and deeply by the time she gets to the checkout line. At least the snotty cashier from last time, the one who gave her a dirty look upon seeing she was paying with EBT, isn't here today.

She manages to wrestle everything home on the bus, sitting next to the window and putting the bags on the seat beside her so no one will take it.

The temperature drops sharply by the time she leaves for Spencer's. She puts on the heaviest coat she owns and heads for the Metro station. The last remnants of red-gold light are fading out of the sky, and streetlights are starting to come on, unreal yellow sodium glow diffusing down. _Dark coming. _She focuses on the small cloud of her breath, appearing and dissipating in front of her.

The train car is blessedly empty, except for an elderly bearded man dozing in the back row. Only three stops before hers, but it still takes too long.

The train pulls into the station at her stop in a hiss of brakes. She gets up and catches a glimpse of herself reflected in the darkened windows opposite. For a fraction of a moment she sees, _really sees_, a faceless smudge of a figure reaching for her. Scent, too, Diane's cloying gardenia perfume -

_ Nothing. There's nothing there, calm yourself, Donovan, will you?_

Spencer answers the door, and she goggles at him. First because he looks _really_ good in all black, then because of the design on his shirt - a large pi symbol with a background of pi's numbers, strung out in rows - then because of his left eye, plum-purple and slightly swollen.

"Happy Pi Day!" he says, and then she remembers: of course, it's March 14th, that old science joke. "Your timing is perfect. The pizza guy just left about five minutes ago."

"And a scintillating pi-related annual event to you, too. What happened to you?" she asks, as he closes the door behind them. "Did something else happen on that case you didn't tell me about?" The team had gotten back from a case in North Carolina yesterday; on the phone he'd just said _I don't want to talk about details, it involved child trafficking and that's all I'm gonna say_ and jeez, she didn't want any details either but being punched might've been worth a mention -

"The eye is actually courtesy of Morgan." He looks a little sheepish. "We were going up stairs at a crime scene, and he turned around all of a sudden. I was just enough steps behind and to his right that he elbowed me right in the face."

"Ow."

"Oh, he apologized profusely." Spencer's smile turns just slightly diabolical. "I plan to exploit it a bit. Maybe give him back a big pile of the extra paperwork he keeps sneaking onto my desk."

She laughs, balancing on one foot, then the other as she pulls off her boots.

They head for the couch. There's a pizza box on the living room coffee table, and a giant bottle of Mountain Dew and plates and two mugs: the _Starfleet Academy_ one and the _Miskatonic University_ one. There's already soda in _Starfleet_, so she fills _Miskatonic_ and leans back against the pillows. Spencer levers a couple slices of pepperoni-and-mushroom out of the box, and passes her one.

"Do you even _own_ a single plain mug?" she asks.

"One. It's black. I keep it at work. Someday I'll bring in the TARDIS-shaped one, just to make everyone get That Look on their faces."

He puts his feet up on the table. She follows suit and they talk, innocuous subjects far from his work or her lack of it: the approaching comet and how visible it might be from D.C. considering the light pollution, details of some magazine article he's read lately on camera obscura and early photographic techniques.

She drops mushrooms on herself halfway through a slice. They laugh about that and she thinks: this is all so peaceful and _normal_, in the very best sense of that word. Well, _normal_ is the absolute last adjective anyone would ever use to describe Spencer, with his mismatched socks and odd loping speech prosody and the way his hands curl and spike and flap as he waxes happily enthusiastic on some favorite topic. She likes that.

She wants to tell him _You're the best thing in my life, you have been for a long time now_, but it makes her shy and there's no natural conversational opening for it anyway, so she just carries on listening to what he says about what qualifies as the world's oldest daguerrotype.

After they finish the pizza, he starts fiddling with the remote, firing up the DVD player. She makes a quick trip to the bathroom, to check for lingering mushroom stains and whether there's anything in her teeth. In the yellow light, the circles under her eyes are disquietingly obvious. She hopes they don't look that bad in the living room's light.

She emerges into deep blue shadows: lamp off and the menu for _Star Trek III_ flickering gently on the TV screen. Her eyes go automatically to the window - curtains drawn, good - and then she tells herself: _It's been two months. Stop._

She goes back to the couch and they start the movie, captions on for Spencer's wonky auditory processing and so they can keep the volume a bit lower. At first she just sits close to him, feet next to his on the table. By the time the _Enterprise_ crew discovers McCoy's carrying Spock's _katra,_ she's curled up on her half of the couch instead.

She lets her head slide down onto Spencer's shoulder - no startle there, he's come to expect this on these nights. He puts an arm around her, hand resting lightly on her waist. Warmth and low voices from the TV and the slow, steady drumbeat of his heart under her ear.

She lets her eyes close and her consciousness slip away, down into the quiet restful depths.


	4. Flight Response

April 12:

5:45, and he's finishing up the week's paperwork. He's alone in the bullpen. When it's empty like this, he can hear the building: the faint soothing hum of the ventilation system, and the even fainter hum of the overhead lights. There's an occasional _tock-tock_ of someone passing by in the hall outside, and then the low drone of the elevator going up and down at the corridor's end.

His cell phone rings, the tone a sharp nail driving into the silence and making him jump. He doesn't recognize the number.

"Hello."

"_Dr. Reid?"_ A slightly pompous, official-sounding female voice.

"Yes?"

"_This is Officer Carla Mikulski with the Metropolitan Police. We're holding a Maeve Donovan down here, and she told us to contact you."_

The breath goes out of him. He sags in his chair, his vision swimming a little. _What?_

_ "Dr. Reid?"_

"Yes...what's going on? Has she been arrested?" He can't imagine a scenario where _that_'s possible, but -

"_No. One of our officers picked her up at the Dupont Circle Metro station. She was...behaving erratically, and he was concerned. We were going to have her transported to Mercy General for observation, till she gave us your number."_

"Is she okay?"

"_Physically, yes. Mentally, we're not sure. Aside from giving us your info, she hasn't said anything. I'm assuming you're a mental health professional of some sort?"_

"You could say that." He's not lying, a psychology doctorate and eight years of profiling work qualifies, right? "I'm...familiar with her history - look, which station are you calling from? I'll be there as soon as I can."

He jots down the station address, his hands shaking, and hangs up. _Damnit_. How's he supposed to get there? Taking the Metro from here to Dupont

Circle means at least two train changes and nearly two hours, between wait times and the Friday afternoon crowds -

Heels coming down the hallway outside, a distinctive clunky sound. Only one person working on this floor has shoes that sound like that. Relief floods him.

He grabs his messenger bag and hurtles out the bullpen doors, just as Garcia is pressing the elevator buttons. She turns around, startled, then smiles.

"Hey, Tall and Brilliant! In a hurry to get out of here?" Then she sees his face, and frowns. "You okay?"

"Garcia, you drove here today, right?"

"Yeah."

"Garcia? I need a _huge _favor."

The drive is slow going. They hit some of the traffic outbound from the city, and creep along till Garcia spots an off-ramp and zips down it, taking a route down side streets he's not familiar with. The scenery blurs past. He's not really paying attention. If the cops are talking about transporting Maeve - that irritating euphemism for brief involuntary commitment - it means whatever happened is serious. If he's going to convince them to let her go with him instead, he has to seem halfway normal and professional. _Look at their eyebrows and noses for a semblance of eye contact, count to three before speaking, put your hands in your pockets because there's no way you'll be able to keep them still and that might look weird - _he'd better not act too familiar with her, either, if he's letting the cops assume their relationship is clinical. Hopefully she'll realize that.

He feels a little sick. He realizes he's curling and clenching his hands over and over, not quite outright flapping.

Garcia pulls into the station parking lot, maneuvering neatly between two cruisers to park.

"Want me to come in with you?" she asks.

He looks at her - loud orange dress, winged glasses slightly glittery with rhinestones, bright feathered barrettes - and decides: "I don't...think I'll need backup." He's not actually sure of that, but her presence and appearance might raise extra questions.

"Come get me if you do."

Mikulski is much shorter and thinner than her voice on the phone suggested. She offers no handshake or polite preambles, which he appreciates; just asks for ID, and then starts explaining. He keeps his gaze on her eyebrows.

"Officer Lopez spotted Ms. Donovan running through the crowd at the Dupont Circle station at about four p.m. He thought she was just trying to catch a train till he saw her stop and attempt to hide under a bench. She seemed noticeably distressed. He stopped and tried to question her, thinking someone might be after her. She was incoherent and, he said, appeared to be reacting to someone who wasn't there. He tried to get her out from under the bench, and she went out the other side and took off. Lopez pursued. She didn't appear to be looking where she was going, and fell down the stairs between the upper and lower level.

"Lopez was able to restrain her and bring her in without further incident. She's been very quiet. Wouldn't answer any questions, so we're not sure she knows exactly what's going on. All she said was, 'Call Dr. Reid,' and then your number."

_One. Two. Three._ "She _has_ been checked out for injury?"

"She's banged up a little from falling, but no signs of head injury we can ascertain, if that's what you're wondering. Or intoxication, either."

"She doesn't have any substance abuse issues." He hopes that's the truth. The possibility's never occurred to him and he's never seen anything indicating otherwise, but still - "Look, she doesn't need to be transported. She's not a danger to anyone else, and I very seriously doubt she's a danger to herself."

His speech is starting to fall all over itself, speed increasing. Mikulski looks at him sharply, and he forces himself to pause, then slow down. "She...has PTSD issues and gets panicked in crowds sometimes. That's all. We're working on it, but she's probably just not ready for Friday afternoon public transit yet." He smiles, hoping it looks like a _no big deal, really_ smile instead of a _please believe this _one.

Mikulski considers, tapping her fingers on the desk for an interminably long moment, then nods. "We can release her under your supervision."

"Thanks." _Keep still and quiet, Spencer, don't look __**too**__ happy_ - why does his internal voice always sound so much like his mom at times like this?

After he signs the release paperwork, the bored-looking cop at the front desk gives him a worn black purse he assumes is Maeve's, then leads him back

down the hall. The bare little room they enter is clearly for interrogation, with a table and chairs and a faint smell of sweat and damp brick.

Maeve's not at the table. It takes a second for him to spot her: in the far corner, curled against the wall, hair hanging down and hiding her face. Her gray tweed suit is smutched with dirt, pantyhose torn, large bloody scrapes visible on the knee and arm he can see.

_Oh God._

"I've got it from here," he tells Bored Cop, who nods and leaves.

He eases the door shut, sits down on the floor beside her, and whispers: "Hey."

She flicks the hair out of her face with a little head shake. Her voice is very small: "You came."

"Of course." There's a bruise starting on her left temple, but her pupils look normal and she seems reasonably focused. He runs her through the standard orientation questions - name, birthday, location, today's date (that one takes her a little while) - and checks her visual tracking.

"Did I pass?" she asks when he's done, her voice flat.

"It'll do. Let's get out of here, huh? This is no place to spend a Friday night."

She doesn't exactly smile at that, just a little mouth twitch, but she starts slowly getting to her feet.

It's getting dark outside. Maeve climbs straight into Garcia's narrow backseat, without a word, and curls up tightly again, staring at nothing. Garcia looks briefly at her before turning to him, brow furrowed. "Everything okay?"

"More or less."

He takes the passenger seat again. It's easier to give directions to Maeve's place from here. He lets his mind drift, except for when he has to point out the

next turn.

Finally they pull up in front of her building. Garcia puts the car in park, motor still running, and half-whispers as he's climbing out: "You need any help, you know my number."

"I know. Thanks."

Maeve's apartment is at the end of the third-floor corridor. It takes her a few tries to find her keys.

She's left the kitchen lights on, eye-stabbingly bright bluish fluorescents that make everything cast sharp shadows. She locks the door behind them, tugs to

check it, rattles it again, then flips the wall switch to turn the fluorescents off and the living room floor lamps on. He scans the living room. Two walls of stuffed

bookshelves, a TV on a stand that looks like it's been kicked down stairs a few times, brown recliner sofa with a patchwork quilt draped over the back. Clean, but musty, like it hasn't been ventilated in a long time.

Maeve folds the sofa out and curls up on one half, pulling the quilt over herself, face expressionless. She doesn't even bother taking off her shoes. He just stands there, unsure, words frozen somewhere between brain and mouth. Finally, he's able to make himself speak: "Um...do you want me by you right now?"

She nods.

He fits on the sofa, just barely. He curls up around her from behind, and puts an arm around her. She relaxes against him, exhaustion-limp, her hair very soft against his face.

"What happened?" he asks.

Her words are slow, but lucid. "They told you."

"Their version. What about yours?"

She sighs. "You...know I had...an interview today."

"Yes." She'd called him, giddy with excitement, after she'd heard: a possible adjunct position at one of the smaller university campuses in Arlington.

"I got there okay. Met the people...everything was going great. Then they...wanted to show me around the department." She stiffens slightly. "It was six floors up. _Open walkways_, and..._windy._"

"Why - _oh._" Unsecured heights after Diane had almost forced her off that rooftop. Of course.

"Yeah. I walked out a little ways and I - couldn't. Ran back inside and threw up in a trash can." She shrugs. "That ended _that_ pretty fast. At least they shooed me out politely."

"So you headed home?"

"I was...disoriented. Got lost for a little while trying to find the station and remember the schedule. Couldn't stop thinking about that roof that night - or her face, or - well. I found the train. Rush hour was starting, I'd forgotten what it was like, and it was this - _tornado _of people. Being pushed, and _noise_ - missed my stop to change trains. Wasn't sure where I was."

_That_ explains why she was at Dupont Circle, he thinks; he'd wondered what she was doing over there.

"The train stopped. Someone squeezed in right up against me, she was - wearing Diane's perfume, and - " She shudders. "And I was _there_ again, she was up against me holding the g-gun on my head again and..."

"So you ran."

"I don't remember it, just noise and I could feel her trying to grab me and I had to get away. I ran. Tried to hide. Thought I saw her trying to get at me. Ran again. Someone was chasing me and shouting, the cop, I guess. Then I fell. I don't really remember anything else, except men's voices and telling them to call you."

He can feel her heart pounding, fluttering like a trapped bird, and he just holds her a little tighter for a while while processing what she's said. He knows what it means, but what's the best way to explain it?

She beats him to it. "It was a flashback." Her hands ball into fists. "Wasn't it?"

"Yes."

Her voice is shaking. "This...isn't going away on its own, right?"

"It doesn't usually, no."

Her laugh is sharp-edged, dangerously close to tearful. "That bitch just keeps stealing my life, I'm just as stuck as I ever was, and I can't even afford to try to

do anything about it. What the hell am I gonna _do_, Spencer? If this keeps up, I can't work, I can't even _look_ for work, if it happens in public again I might get arrested for real - "

"I can help you."

Maeve rolls over on her back and looks at him, startled. "You?"

"Yes." His words are tripping over each other in haste again. "I mean, I -I've got a degree, professional training and - I know what it's like, too."

She considers. "You'd do that?"

His chest and throat are hurting, looking at her. He nods and kisses the bruise on her temple. When he can speak again, he says: "We'll...work out some kind

of plan. It won't be much fun."

"Anything's better than what's going on now." She pushes the quilt aside and looks down at herself. "Ugh. I need a bath."

"When's the last time you ate?"

"This morning."

"You take care of the bath, I'll take care of the food."

She smiles, for real this time, and limps off down the hallway.

Once he hears water running, he gets up and looks through the kitchen. Beans, rice, ramen, tomato soup, those little microwaveable cups of powdery orange macaroni and cheese. Poor college student food. Except she's not a college student. He thinks of her shabby purse and wonders, again, just how she's doing financially.

He calls the nearest pizza place, and then sits down and gets his notebook out of his bag. By the time Maeve emerges, bathrobe-swathed and damp and scrubbed slightly pink, he's already outlining what they might do.


	5. Exposure Therapy

May 18:

She hates waiting outside alone for very long. There's nothing to be afraid of, she knows that, but it still makes her feel too exposed. Especially on a foggy morning like this, where sounds are muffled in the damp air and everything more than a block away is fuzzed into insubstantial gray shapes. Being huddled in her favorite jacket helps a little. She tries putting the hood up, then pulls it down again when she realizes it just blocks out more of her surroundings.

She checks her watch. It's been fifteen minutes, time she can count in her log as therapy time because it's exposure to the outdoors and the more of that the better -

Headlights, approaching in the fog, and a familiar-sounding engine. She smoothes her condensation-damp hair back before Spencer's car pulls up.

It's blessedly dry inside, classical music issuing softly from the radio. Spencer's wrapped in a long black coat she's never seen before. He looks tired, and apparently forgot to comb his hair before going out, but his shy little smile is beautiful.

"Hi."

"Hi." She's about to make some snarky observation about the unseasonable weather, but she starts yawning so widely she can't form the words.

He points: a styrofoam cup in the cup holder and a brown paper bag on the passenger-side dashboard, both bearing the logo of the neighborhood coffee shop. She busies herself with them as he pulls out and drives down the misty side streets. Black coffee and sesame-seed bagels and one of those little bacon-and-egg sandwiches she likes.

They head up onto the freeway, going north. The fog grays out most of the scenery.

"Thanks for breakfast," she says.

"No problem. How long were you waiting?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"Scary?"

"Not especially." The coffee and food are making her feel steadily more awake. "It's pretty low-traffic this early, though."

"It still counts as practice." He's concentrating on the road, looking straight ahead through the steady _whup-whup_ of the wipers. She decides it's probably better to just let him do that till the fog thins more or till they get wherever they're going.

She watches condensation droplets stream across the passenger-side window, and mentally reviews the progress of the last few weeks. She's decided the two most urgent problems are the heights thing and the creeping nervousness she feels out in public, especially around crowds. They've worked out a list of things she can do for exposure therapy, some with Spencer and some alone.

Daily practice isn't so bad. She's worked her way up to a five-block walk on late weekday afternoons, when the most pedestrians and cars are around. Part of her still cringes every time she sees a woman who looks anything like Diane - or a police car, the humiliation of the subway incident is still too fresh - but she still manages. Going up to the top floor of her apartment building and looking out the main corridor's window isn't too hard, either.

(_How do you know I'll be honest about logging the daily stuff_? she'd asked Spencer, only half-joking. _I trust you_, he'd said, and remembering that has helped keep her from chickening out on trying the solo assignments so far.)

The weekend exposures have been harder. The neighborhood park on Sunday afternoons, watching the random chaos of people from a bench or picnic table. The parking garage downtown, six open-sided floors and the elevator with thick see-through plastic sides. The best she's done there so far is take the elevator up to the second floor and step out briefly. Watching the ground receding below, and then the _wind_ blowing through...she shivers.

She doesn't know where they're going today, or what's planned, only that Spencer had said it was important they be there early_. It'd better be worth it_, she thinks. She got almost no sleep again last night.

Hypnotized by the moving water droplets, she slips into a light doze. Eventually, distantly, she feels the car stop, and then Spencer nudging her gently.

"Hm?"

"We're here."

She sits up and stares blearily out the windshield. They're in a parking lot surrounded by trees. A few yards away, she sees the start of a trail heading into the woods. There's a bike rack and a little roofed stand holding a bulletin board nearby.

"Where's here?" she asks.

"Rock Creek Park. There's a perfect place for practice out here. That's why I wanted to get here early - thought you'd have an easier time with it with fewer people around."

She gets out of the car and waits, looking around, while Spencer locks it up. Rock Creek Park, she'd come out here before, years ago now (with - she forces the thought of Bobby out of her mind). It's foggy here too, the air smelling of wet dirt and green growing things. _An easier time with fewer people around?_ That means this probably isn't about crowd or open space exposure, it must be -

"We're not climbing trees, are we? Because I don't think I'm ready for that, and it's probably not a great idea in wet weather, either."

Spencer smiles. "No. Though that's not a bad idea for later."

"Only if you agree to climb one too."

They walk over to the trailhead. There's a map on the bulletin board, with a little red star indicating where they are within the park's massive stretch. Suspicious, she stops before it and studies what's on the trail. A winding walk of about three-quarters of a mile, approaching the river, and -

"Oh, _no_." She looks at Spencer, trying not to glare. "_Not_ that bridge."

He gets this incredibly sheepish look on his face, and nods.

"You're serious...are you trying to make me have a stroke or something? That's a suspension bridge, and it's _open_ and - "

"That's why this is perfect." He's staring down at his shoes now. "It's open, but it never gets that windy, not with all the trees around it being windbreaks."

She has to admit that makes sense, but she doesn't want to say it. "You could have at least _warned_ me."

"If I had, would you have come?"

"That's a rhetorical question, right?"

He shrugs.

She takes a deep breath and turns toward the trailhead. "Let's get this over with, then."

The trail is actually nice, or would be if she weren't so nervous. A few yards' walk and the parking lot is out of sight, misty spring woods surrounding them. She'd forgotten how many different subtle shades of green a forest has, or how tree trunks get delicately frosted with moss and lichens. There's a bird somewhere nearby, whistling one low repetitive note.

It's not long before she hears the rush of water. A couple of sharp bends in the trail, and the ground rises and then drops off, a relatively steep drop to the riverbed. The bridge is just ahead.

She stops, Spencer just behind her, and inspects it. It's narrow, just wide enough for two people to cross at once, mossy brown wood and a web of rusty cables, springing out and downward to meet the continued slope of the ground on the other bank. The river isn't too wide here. She glances down, and gets a quick glimpse of rocks and low, rushing whitewater before she looks away.

Spencer steps out onto the bridge. She's about to follow him, but he holds up a hand.

"I'm going across first. I'll wait at the other end. You should be able to see me the whole time."

"You want me to do this alone." Not really a question, but he nods anyway.

She sighs and watches him cross, noticing the bridge bouncing lightly as he does. _It moves_, she thinks. _Oh damn._

Once he reaches the other side, he turns back toward her and leans on the railing, hands in his pockets. "Okay," he calls out. "I counted forty-two steps, but your legs are shorter than mine so I don't know if that helps - it might."

"Can I use the railing?"

"Of course."

She's already shaking a little. She closes her eyes, grabs the flaking wood railing with both hands, and steps onto the bridge.

The first few steps are relatively easy. The bridge is still close enough to where it's fixed in the bank that it doesn't move under her. She decides against counting paces - Spencer's right, the count wouldn't be the same for her - and concentrates on shuffling along. One step per breath. The rush of water below is unpleasant, too much like wind. She wishes she had earplugs.

An eternity of shuffling sideways steps, and - _there_ - the bridge starts bobbing under her, just a little spring. Her stomach lurches. She presses against the railing and takes a few deep breaths before continuing. The structure is moving and squeaking slightly with each of her steps now. The shifting, and the _sounds_ -

She freezes. The rooftop, sounds crashing around her and the awful empty space behind her, Diane close and snarling -

She digs her fingers into the railing, wet splinters coming off on her hands. Coffee-tasting bile rises in her throat. She swallows hard, then forces herself to move another two steps. The bridge moves hideously under her, springier than ever. That means she must be at about the middle, but she doesn't dare open her eyes to check. She starts crying, silently, hot tears spilling down her cold face.

She must have been still for longer than she thought, because Spencer calls out to her. He's trying to sound calm, but she can hear the undertone of concern in his voice. "Maeve?"

Her mouth has gone so dry it's hard to respond. "I'm gonna fall."

"You can't. The railing's too high. Just...take another step. Okay? One at a time."

She feels floaty and disconnected trying to move her own body now, like a puppeteer moving a marionette. She makes the next step a big one, then clings to the railing till the bridge stops bouncing. Again. Again. Her mind is turning into a humming blank now. She feels like she's vanishing away down a long tunnel, and all she can do is think _please don't let me faint_.

The bridge is sloping downward again now, she can feel it under her. _Keep moving, keep moving, keep -_

She smacks into something warm and solid - _Spencer_ - and then his arms are around her, holding on tightly, which is good because that's when her legs go out from under her. He lurches and almost overbalances holding her up, before righting himself. She presses her face into the folds of his coat, concentrating on making her breathing slow down.

Finally, when her breathing is almost normal and her legs feel like they'll hold her again, she opens her eyes and disentangles herself from him.

"You okay?"

"More or less." Her voice is still shaky.

There's a little winding path leading from here down to the water's edge. She picks her way down it, Spencer following. The bank here is strewn with rocks. She spots a large, relatively flat one jutting into the water, and sits down on it, leaning carefully over to rinse her dirty hands off.

The water is still cold, and running fast with the last vestiges of spring thaw. She pulls her shoes and socks off and dangles her feet in, concentrating on the sensation of the water rushing between her toes and pulling at her ankles.

Spencer sits down beside her. He's picked up a long stick on his way down, and he pokes it about halfway into the water and lets it hang loosely in his hands, watching the water's flow around it. Then he starts slowly twirling it, making a repetitive circular pattern in the current.

"You did really well," he says.

"I know." She laughs nervously.

"How scared were you?"

"Are you kidding? I was _terrified._" She looks up at the bridge, and feels a little dizzy again realizing how high up it is. Something occurs to her. "We have to go back across to get back to the car, don't we?"

"No. If we go another mile down the main trail in that direction - " he points to their right - "there's a much lower footbridge, only a few feet high. We can walk back to the car from there." He suddenly looks worried. "If you're up to the hiking."

"I'd like it. It's been a while since I was in a forest."

Once she has her shoes back on, they head back up the bank and down the trail. Except for the sound of the river, it's very quiet. It's slow going, because the ground is uneven and hilly, but the pace just gives her more time to look around. Neither of them says anything, but it's a comfortable silence.

By the time they get back to the car, the fog is thinning. Spencer's noticeably more relaxed driving this time. She lets herself slump in the passenger seat, and eats the last bagel between yawns. The jitteriness of adrenaline and caffeine is ebbing out of her, being replaced by a warm fuzz of sleepiness.

"You're not sleeping well, are you?"

The question's so matter-of-fact. It startles her a little. "N-no. I...actually don't really sleep at all when it's dark...how'd you know?"

"Sleep disturbances are almost universal during the process of working through serious trauma. I also know from...personal experience. Besides, when we meet at my place, you end up falling asleep sixty percent of the time."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. You're coping better than I did."

"What did you do?"

A pause, then, his voice flat: "I took Dilaudid."

"_Oh_." She'd known the bare facts of this. He'd mentioned it a few times over the months of phone conversations, but he'd never gone into any detail, and it wasn't the kind of thing you pushed for details of.

"It actually really works for insomnia. Though I wouldn't recommend it, of course."

"What's it like, exactly?" The instant she asks, she realizes how invasive she's being. "You don't have to answer that."

"No, I -" He sighs. "It's like...being rolled up in a warm blanket and just...with everything taken care of, and there's the greatest sense of relaxation. Safety."

"God, how'd you ever quit?"

"Sometimes I still don't know."

She lets it go at that.

They go up to her apartment. Spencer keeps following her lead, only taking his shoes off and draping his coat over a kitchen chair after he sees her do the same. She looks around. Newspapers on the floor, empty coffee mugs scattered around, dirty dishes stacked on the cupboard. Maybe she should have cleaned up, knowing he was coming over, but she hadn't had the energy.

"I need a nap," she mumbles. "If I'm gonna be coherent enough for us to do anything tonight."

"Good idea." He sounds as tired as she feels.

"You can come in with me if you want."

He does an actual double-take when he hears that. It makes her blush. She amends: "Just to sleep, I mean, it's more comfortable than you trying to fit onto that couch - "

"Of course." His laugh is small and nervous.

The bed is unmade. They end up flopped diagonally across it, and she straightens the blankets out over them. There's light filtering into the room, the deep gray of very overcast sky.

They don't touch at first. Just as she thinks he's asleep already, she feels him roll over. His fingertips on her back, rubbing lightly, and then drawing away.

"Sorry," he whispers. "I should've asked."

"Go ahead."

He moves up close behind her, both hands on her shoulders and back, scritching with just the right amount of pressure. She closes her eyes and goes limp. Warmth and relaxation, and a definite growing build of arousal, yes, this is a lot different than cuddling on a couch -

She rolls over, facing him. His eyes are closed, and he's smiling.

"Mind if I kiss you?" she whispers.

He shakes his head, so she does. Then he's kissing her back, with his hand on her shoulder and then her hip. She starts opening her mouth against his, and he pulls back. "I don't like _that_ kind of kissing. Nothing personal."

"If you don't like something, tell me." She says this against his skin, at the hollow at the base of his throat. He moans a little, his hand tightening on her hip.

They go still like that, legs entangled, her head tucked under his chin. She feels his breathing relax into the slow rhythm of sleep.

_Safety_, she thinks, and closes her eyes.


	6. Long Distance

June 16, 10:30 pm, Louisville, KY:

He has created the perfect cocoon.

This isn't as simple as it might seem, given the limitations of motel beds, but the sheer number of motels he's stayed in over the course of this job has given him plenty of practice. He has a routine worked out for these stays. Come back to the room for the night, turn the AC way down, change into ancient sweats so ratty he's a little embarrassed for anyone to see him in them, lie sideways on the bed, and roll up in the blankets burrito-fashion. One pillow for his head, the other behind his back, TV remote and pertinent case files and his phone within reach. It's so immediately calming that he doesn't mind paying extra for a room to himself, to be able to do it without puzzled looks or temperature arguments. (Hotch had never minded, but Morgan had made mummification jokes the one time he'd seen it, and as for the only time he'd ever had to share with Rossi...)

He's turned out the lamp. Occasionally yellowy sweeps of light pass across the ceiling, from headlights of cars turning into the parking lot below. The curtains are closed, but in any paid lodging, there always seems to be that one gap along the top that lets a little outside light in. The TV's slightly bluish flicker is the only steady illumination. He's got it on mute with the captions on, tuned to a _TNG_ marathon. It _was_ helping get the images from the day's work out of his mind, but he's seen this particular episode - the one where Picard goes back home for the first time after being de-Borgified - so many times he can practically recite all the lines.

He decides to leave the TV on anyway, as a night-light. Usually, on away cases, he wakes up a few times every night. If he's lucky, it's not nightmares waking him. Sleeping in complete darkness would be bad enough at home. Forget it here.

He jumps when the phone buzzes, then sighs and snakes an arm out of the blankets to grab it. _Please, don't be another development in the case, it's already bad enough - _then he sees the number on the screen, and grins.

"Hi."

"Hi there, special agent!" Maeve's voice sounds cheerful, but also distinctly congested. "Is this a good time? I didn't get you in the middle of something, or too late or - "

"No. No, it's fine." He sits up a little, to check the bedside table clock. DC's an hour ahead - why's she up so late? "Having trouble sleeping again?"

"Yeah. You okay? You sound tired."

"I am. _You_ sound sick."

"I am. I got one of those nasty summer colds. It feels like someone's slowly pouring a pitcher of water into my head. Haven't moved off the couch most of the day. I've been drinking some of that tea you gave me, the chamomile stuff. It's helping a little."

"Good." He rolls over on his back. "I'd rather I was there keeping an eye on you, but that's the next best thing."

"Is it a bad one?"

"Bad enough. I don't want to talk about details. We don't know if one of the victims is alive or dead for sure, but there was enough blood at the kidnap scene that everyone's basically assuming we're just waiting for a body to turn up. Sorry, I probably shouldn't be putting that kind of imagery in your head. Especially this late at night."

"It's not a problem. I'm a doctor, remember?"

"How much blood, exactly, _can _someone lose at one time before it's...the point of no return?" He knew this once. Emily had mentioned the specific amount when first telling him about Foyet nearly gutting Hotch. But his brain is too overstimulated right now to remember.

"Four pints, more or less. Whether they die and how quickly depends on their size, how and where they're hurt, and whether there's any first aid to slow it down." Maeve's voice tightens around the last few words. Then she starts coughing, a long, ugly spasm that makes him wince and hold the phone slightly away from his ear. When she stops, she gasps for breath a little, then croaks: "I...guess I won't be...doing any exposure exercises for a few days."

"Don't. Stay in."

"I _hate_ staying in. It's not like I didn't spend a year _stuck_ here. It's miserable not to be able to go out easily, and it's a _lot_ worse being sick here." A small, wheezy sigh. "I just feel...trapped."

"I know." That sounds so inadequate, but he can't figure out what else to say.

"I _did_ manage to walk down to the convenience store and get soup and cough medicine." She laughs a little. "_Convenience_ store, hell. They charge three times as much as the supermarket. Speaking of food, are you remembering to eat?"

"Yeah. That watch-alarm-reminder idea of yours is really working. We were right, I really _can't_ tell very well if I'm hungry. Not till my blood sugar drops to wooziness levels, anyway."

"Interoception issues. Particularly when you get into the crime-solving zone, I bet."

"One time? We were in Florida. The main crime scene was this unventilated shed, and it was summer. I was in there, reading this creep's journals and going through his things. I was so absorbed for so long, I didn't realize how close I was to passing out till JJ came in and practically dragged me out."

"Maybe you should set an alarm for that sort of thing, too."

"Usually I just take my cues from the others. I thought the heat would be okay that time, since I have tolerance from growing up in Las Vegas. I just forgot to factor in the humidity."

Maeve's voice turns slightly playful. "I deduce that...you're cocooning right now."

"You deduce correctly. It helps, some. But it's hard to get the right amount of pressure. I'd love to have you on top of me right now." He realizes what he just said, and groans slightly. "Um, I didn't mean that to sound quite so obscene."

"I wouldn't call it _obscene_. An amusing double entendre, sure." He can hear the smile in her voice. "I know what you meant, Spencer. Although, for the record, I wouldn't have minded if you'd meant it the other way."

"Hm." He can feel himself blushing.

"I wish I was there. I like being your deep pressure. Maybe I could do the thing to your ears again, just for extra distraction."

"_Hmm_." So far, they've only had two bouts of anything you could call making out, all very tentative and rather ticklish. Thinking about her nibbling his ears last time gives him a lovely, distracting pang of heat deep inside. He's jolted away from that thought by her coughing, smaller and more painful-sounding this time.

"Except I'd probably give you this damn cold," she rasps, once she stops.

"Then wait till you're better." His eyes are starting to close involuntarily. "This phone talking...like old times."

"Yeah. I like things better now, though."

"Likewise." He rolls over on his side, to curl up.

There's a pause, and then a little hesitation in her voice when she answers: "It's just...after that whole business with the Replicator, now I want to...I don't know...check in on you when you're away? Look, I'll _never_ try to push you to do anything else, this job is too important to you and you're too important to your team, but it scares me sometimes."

"_Maeve_." He's suddenly awake again, processing that. "It's all right. Check in on me if you want. I won't always be able to answer right away, but I get back to messages."

Her voice, very quiet: "Okay. I don't mean to get maudlin, or distract you from things."

"Don't worry about it."

He hears her yawning. "I think the cold medicine is kicking in again. The last dose knocked me out most of the afternoon. I took the second one right before I called you."

"If you're tired, sleep. I'm kind of passing out myself."

"Sounds good." Her tone is a little distant and floaty now. "Spencer?"

"Mm?"

"Love you."

It still stops his breath for an instant when she says that. "Love you back."

He's asleep within a few minutes of her hanging up. He only wakes up once in the night this time, the TV flickering with an infomercial and the phone still in his hand.


	7. Something Rotten

_July 21, United States Botanic Gardens:_

"Do you want to see this corpse flower thing first, or should we do the walk-through and then go to it?"

She doesn't register his question right away. She's too busy focusing on the cool solidity of the wall at her back and watching the growing crowd swirling around in the atrium. There are _lots_ of people here. Maybe it just seems like a lot because she's still not entirely reacclimated to public spaces. She can hear the rise and fall of everyone's echoing speech.

"Maeve?" A light tap on her shoulder. She jumps, a brief unpleasant rush of adrenaline flooding her.

"Sorry." Spencer looks worried now, eyes wider and brow furrowed. She takes his hand and turns toward the big map on the wall.

"It's okay. I just got - distracted."

"Crowd bothering you?"

"Only a little." She takes a deep breath. The air in here is more warm and damp than she'd expected, though that makes sense, with all the delicate climate controlling the place has for the various plants' health. Good thing she left her jacket at home. Even if it _would_ be nice to hide in right about now.

"It's not usually like this. Not this early on a Sunday. It's just - "

"Everyone's here to see the flower." She laughs a little. "That gigantic, stinky flower."

"It's rare to see a titan arum outside of East Asia. Only a few gardens in the world have specimens. Seeing them in bloom is even rarer." Spencer's bouncing up and down on tiptoe a bit, his voice louder than usual. She recognizes this by now - it's how he acts when he's really excited about something - and it makes her smile. A brochure-reading woman in a blue shirt nearby looks up at them briefly.

"Let's go look at it first thing, then. _Before_ people _really_ start coming in."

The titan arum is in a room in the east wing dedicated to rare and exotic plants. There's a line stretching back down one of the glassed-in halls. The sun refracting through the glass makes it bright and hot inside. Between the temperature and the way Spencer had kept sneaking little sidelong glances at her legs during the Metro ride over here, she's glad she wore shorts.

Spencer keeps looking around, squinting and blinking, flapping the map brochure at his side. She nudges him. "Sunglasses?"

It takes a moment for him to respond. "Oh. Right." He fishes them out of a side pocket and puts them on, slowly. They're the big round ones, slightly alien-looking. Between them and his blue sweater and lumpy cargo pants, he looks dorky, in a really cute sort of way.

They're in line between Blue Shirt Woman behind them and an elderly man reeking of cheap cologne ahead of them. She stares out the windows at the rose garden outside, the blooming plants bright soft bits of color through the blurry glass. The noise and smell of people this close is starting to make her feel a little claustrophobic. At least the line is moving fast.

As they approach the door, she gets out her camera. It's palm-sized, just right for a pocket, a nice plus for doing things like this where you didn't want to be lugging a bag around all day. She takes a couple of practice shots of the garden and the glassed-over ceiling.

"Did you ever tell me you like photography?" Spencer asks.

"I probably mentioned it at some point. I'm a little out of practice, obviously." The camera's screen shows clear pictures. Good.

The line moves into the display room. The titan arum plant is in its own space, with a rope railing around it. It looks like a large beach umbrella stuck upside-down and half-open in the sand, green and pink, not quite as tall as her. People ahead, closer to it, are making faces and various sounds of disgust as they circle it.

_Come on, it can't be _that_ bad_, she thinks. Then the smell hits her, a roadkill stench so potent she can almost taste it. She gags slightly, resisting the urge to pull her shirt collar up over her nose.

"Oof," she says, as the line goes up against the ropes.

"It's pollinated by flies and other insects that like rotting meat. The smell is to draw them." Spencer doesn't seem to be reacting visibly to the stink, though she thinks he's a bit paler than usual. "It's not even fully in bloom yet. Imagine what it's like then."

"I'd rather not." She takes a few pictures, aiming the camera with one hand and holding her nose with the other, before the line circles around and out into another hallway. Blue Shirt Woman hurries past them, a hand over her mouth.

Once the smell is more or less out of range, they draw over against the wall, out of the way of the moving crowd. Spencer opens the map up again.

"Didn't that bother you at all?" she asks.

"Not really. I mean, it's not _nice_. They call it the corpse flower for a reason and it's accurate. But I've encountered the real thing under much less controlled circumstances, so comparatively..." He looks at her and shrugs, then laughs. "That probably sounds awful."

"No." Of _course_ he's been around real dead bodies, because of his work. She hadn't thought about that.

"It's not that it's not terrible. It's that it doesn't...get to me." He looks intently back down at the map. "_Now_, since we've seen the Reeking Flower of Doom, I suggest we commence a nice leisurely walk-through." 

The Orchid Room is much larger than she expected, very damp and smelling of greenery and delicate blooming flowers. There are people further up, and behind them, on the walkways. She can hear them, but they're obscured by the big, low-limbed trees and the great snarls of flowering vines growing up to entwine with masses of dangling aerial roots.

Spencer goes ahead up the path. She lags behind, crossing from side to side to lean over railings and zoom in on individual blooms before taking pictures. She hadn't realized orchids came in quite _so _many colors: pink, purple, red, orange, spotted. Twice, passersby jostle her unexpectedly. She's concentrating so hard, she only startles a little.

When she finally reaches the path's end, Spencer's there, reading one of the informational signs as other camera-carrying people drift past.

"There are orchids shaped like female wasps, specifically to trick male wasps into mating with them and thereby pollinating them," he greets her. "Did you know?"

"Now I do. I'm glad there aren't any plants that mimic humans that way."

"I'm sure we could find some 1950s science fiction movie like that if we looked hard enough, though. There _are_ plant-people and pod-people short stories. _Lots_ of sentient tree-spirit and plant-spirit stories all over the world, too, though that's not quite the same thing."

"I think there was an _X-Files_ episode about something similar. I have the DVDs at home. We could check tonight, after. If you want to come over, I mean."

He nods, then takes her free hand as they enter the Jungle Room.

There's a lot more echoing in here, a sudden sense of _bigness._ She looks up and sees the atrium ceiling, glass panels dripping with condensation and arching far above their heads in a turreted dome, tropical trees all around them reaching high up into it. It reminds her of one of those ornate Victorian-era freestanding birdcages, just a lot larger.

"They replicated a patch of rain forest," Spencer says, almost in her ear. "With all its levels. The room's set up so you can see it from almost every possible angle." He points up, and she looks again, expecting something especially interesting among the trees. Then she realizes what he's indicating: the catwalk running around the room partway up, at just the right height to look down on most of the jungle canopy. Her stomach knots up.

"You want us to go up there?"

"I wasn't _planning_ on it. But it _would_ be a good exposure exercise."

She eyes the catwalk. The silhouettes of people up there seem so distant. "I don't know if I can walk around that whole thing." She's not even sure she can manage going up there at all, but she doesn't want to say that and sound so chicken.

"How about we go up and just go out on it a little ways? Stay for five minutes, then come back down."

She considers. "Okay." 

The elevator is mercifully empty. They emerge onto the catwalk near the stand of Brazil nut trees, the bushy leaves blocking most of the view out and down. She checks her watch, to mark the time.

They walk along the catwalk's center at first, slowly. She keeps her eyes on the treetops, trying to ignore the other people walking past. She's shivering a little, even in the humid warmth.

Spencer's hand, warm on her elbow. "You okay?"

She nods and takes a deep breath, then another.

"Good." He tugs her arm, just slightly. "Now we should try looking down."

She stares at him. "Are you sure? I mean, if I - freak out up here - "

"Then I'm here to explain."

She shakes her head. "You're lucky I love you, 'cause I _hate _that you're making me do this."

They go over to the catwalk's left side. The railings here are actually higher than the ones on the Rock Creek Park bridge, which helps, but at the park there hadn't been people's _voices_ so far below to indicate just how high up she was. She grabs the railing with both hands, just as she feels Spencer stepping away from her.

"Hey - "

"Just take a moment to feel it. Yourself, _by_ yourself, up here in space." Spencer's voice is calm and quiet. "Okay?"

_Not really_, she thinks, but she nods anyway.

"All right. Now, lean forward, just a little, and look down."

Her hands tighten on the railing so hard it hurts. She makes herself lower her eyes and tilt her head downward. Foliage, lots of it, tree branches and mats of vines full of purple flowers, the path, the _path_ so far below and small and the people like dolls -

She closes her eyes and turns away, breath suddenly short and painful, her chest feeling heavy and choked. Spencer puts an arm around her shoulders and steers her back toward the elevators.

"Has it been five minutes yet?" she manages, her voice feeling thick and clumsy.

"Not quite. But I'm guessing you've had enough?"

"God, yes."

Once they're back on the ground floor, she sits down on the low rock wall bordering the nearest part of the display, concentrating on taking deep, even breaths and waiting for her legs to stop feeling wobbly. Spencer waits, standing beside her with his hands behind his back, rocking up onto the balls of his feet and then back down again over and over. The woman in the blue shirt passes by at one point, slowing to look back at them rather strangely, but no one else seems to notice. Good. This is already embarrassing enough.

"_That_ wasn't any fun," she finally says.

"You did really good, though. The brochure? It says this atrium's 93 feet high. That catwalk's halfway up, so you were up 46 and a half feet. That's higher than the park bridge or anywhere else you've tried so far. Plus, you looked _down_."

"Yay me." She keeps her voice flat on purpose.

"No, seriously, that was a big step."

She stands up. "We're not getting to see everything, though."

"So we'll just have to come back once you've worked up to that part." 

They go to the Desert Room next. The path winds through a small-scale canyon of carefully arranged large rocks, the plants sprouting from sand beds in some spots and seeming to grow right out of the rock in others. The air is dry and hot and faintly sage-scented.

Spencer stops just inside the door and looks around, a huge, slightly goofy grin on his face. "This is just like where I grew up. Smells like it, too."

"Cool."

"No, hot." He nudges her shoulder, and she groans slightly at the bad joke.

They walk past tall budding cacti and low, fan-shaped cacti and succulents that resemble giant Brussels sprouts. She stops to take pictures of a squat brown tree covered in prickles. Spencer moves a few paces away and starts examining a branching cactus that looks like a green, spiky sock monkey.

She's zooming the camera in on the thorny surface of the tree trunk, wondering how the trunk itself can have prickles, when a voice suddenly speaks on her left. "Ma'am?"

She jumps a little and looks over. It's the woman in the blue shirt. Up close, she looks about fifty or so, smiling face lightly seamed with wrinkles and eyes wide and alert behind glasses.

"Um...yes?"

"I hope you don't mind." Blue Shirt's voice is annoyingly loud. "We keep ending up in the same rooms, so I couldn't help seeing you. I just wanted to say what a _nice_ job you're doing with that young man. I'm a special ed teacher myself, so I know how hard it can be taking someone with autism to this busy a public place. But that training being out is _so_ important for them, don't you agree? What agency are you from?"

"...Agency?" Then it dawns on her, exactly what Blue Shirt is talking about - and assuming - and she goes cold, right through to her insides, like she just swallowed a bagful of ice. She can see Spencer, on the woman's other side. Judging by how he's turned around, staring, completely still, she knows he must have heard too.

"Yes, so many of the ID/DD services around here have really undertrained staff - "

"Lady." She finds herself taking a step closer to Blue Shirt, watching her back up a step to compensate. "First of all, he's _more_ than capable of being out on his own. Second - you know what? Where the _hell_ do you get off talking like anyone who _does_ need a caretaker is just some big chore to deal with? _Training being out_? What, like they're dogs being walked, or something?" She's shaking. "Oh, and talking about him right in front of him, like he's not there, that's rotten too."

"Ma'am, I - just thought - " Blue Shirt's smile is gone, replaced by a scared look. _Good_.

"I'm not his caretaker, I'm his girlfriend. Not that it's any concern of yours."

"Girlfriend? Honey, I don't know what you're talking about, but people with his disability don't date. They're not capable of understanding it. It's kind of sad, really, but it's probably for the best - the genetics if they had kids, you know."

"_What?_" Her hands are clenched in fists now. She knows she's being loud, but she doesn't care anymore. "Wow. This whole conversation? It's the single biggest load of prejudiced _crap _I've ever heard in my life. And you're a _special ed teacher_? God, your poor students."

"You don't have to overreact! I just thought we worked in the same business, that's all!"

"_Business_? Next time, try _minding yours!_" She glares, till Blue Shirt pushes past her with a loud _hmph_ sound and heads off down the path.

She's hyperventilating a little, tears stinging her eyes, but she watches to be sure Blue Shirt's really leaving. Once she sees the woman pass through the sliding doors at the room's other end, she turns back to Spencer.

He's not there. 

Finding him takes a little deduction. She could have him paged, or call his phone, but she's not sure he'd respond. She _is_ pretty sure he wouldn't leave the gardens entirely, or go back anywhere they've already been, with as busy as those places were. She ponders one of the big wall maps, trying to ignore the vague weight of anxiety in her chest. He would go someplace quiet, out-of-the-way, with space around him...

She checks the outdoor spaces - the water garden, the rose garden - focusing on the shady spots. Finally, she sees him, sitting on the edge of a small tiered fountain in a dim alcove of flowering shrubs. She fakes a cough as she comes up behind him, to avoid startling him.

"Hey."

"Hey." Spencer's staring at the falling water. He's holding a big dry leaf, slowly picking it apart in small, even bits, which he lets fall into the fountain. He doesn't look at her when she sits down beside him.

"You okay?"

His smile is very small. "Oh, sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Look, that woman was just an ignorant jackass with a nosiness problem. I mean, I'm not gonna tell you how to feel about it, I'm pretty furious right now too, but - "

"That's not it."

"Then what?"

He stammers a little before he can get the answer out: "Sometimes...I think maybe you should be with someone normal instead."

All she can do is stare at him, mouth open, going cold with shock again despite the heat.

He continues. "I mean, if I'm that - that _obvious_ - there's gonna be other people realizing it and - hassling us with the same stuff." His voice is shaking. "What she said? That's what a _lot_ of people think about...people like me. Can't understand anything, have to be _trained_, incapable of love, bad genes - all she had to do was say I must be violent, too, and she would have had the whole stereotype list."

"Spencer - "

"We get - unnecessary surgeries and, and aversive therapy for stimming, and - poisonous quack medicine, and - your own profession calls the chance of having a kid like me a _risk_!" His speech is speeding up. She really has to concentrate to understand. "And it's not just that stuff, I cause _you_ problems, with my rambling and my hearing and how I can't even make eye contact with you and...you keep feeling like you have to ask before you even touch me and I'm...embarrassing you in public." He takes his sunglasses off and starts cleaning them with the tail of his sweater. "I just...don't know if it's fair to you."

"_Spencer_." Her voice sounds strange, probably because her throat's gone tight with wanting to cry. "The people who do that stuff are awful, and you don't embarrass me, and I don't _want_ to be with 'someone normal'. I want to be with _you._"

He goes very still. Then, she feels his hand, closing over hers where it rests on the fountain's edge. She laces her fingers with his.

"Sorry I walked off," he says.

" S' okay. Do you want to carry on with the tour?" she asks.

"Not really. I don't want to chance running into that woman again, and...I'd rather we go back to your place early. We can't see everything here properly in one day, anyway."

"Sure. Should we get pizza?"

His smile this time is still small, but genuine now. "It's practically a requirement." 

Her apartment feels surprisingly dark after the brightness of outdoors. She opens the living room blinds, letting thin gold light in. Spencer wanders over to the couch, where one recliner footrest sits open, and tries to push it back in.

"It's broken," she tells him. "I tried to fix it, but it didn't work."

"Oh." He sits on the other side and takes out his phone.

"Hey." She holds up a hand. "I'll get it this time."

"Is that okay for you? Moneywise, I mean."

"Yeah. Unemployment pays enough for me to do it once in a while."

"You're getting unemployment?"

"When...everything was going on...and I knew I'd have to leave my job, I talked to my old boss. He arranged things somehow so I was officially 'let go' instead of resigning. He said that way, I could get unemployment if I needed it later on. Good thing he did."

She can't remember the pizza place's number, but it's on a promotional magnet on the fridge. She goes into the kitchen to make the call, then joins Spencer on the couch, maneuvering carefully onto the jammed side.

"It should arrive soon. They're not that busy."

"Good." He puts an arm around her, gingerly, then tighter, and she puts her head on his shoulder. "Um...Maeve?"

"Mm-hm?"

"You don't _have_ to ask to touch me."

She sits up straight again, to look at him. "You said you don't like unexpected touch."

"Keyword, _unexpected_. But you're not..." He grins. "You're not unexpected anymore."

"Well." She turns in toward him a bit. "Still, though. Tell me if you don't like something."

"I will." He closes his eyes.

"That said, I think I'll kiss you." She tilts Spencer's chin down slightly and does, once, twice. His other arm goes around her. Then he's kissing her back, his hands are on her hips, and - _hm_ - the way they're sitting, they're pressed together rather interestingly. She moves a little further over, to nibble at his ear. He moans and shifts deliciously against her, and now she's somehow partly on top of him and _extremely_ aware of where his hands are, her waist, higher up her sides, then stopping, still entirely too low.

She closes her eyes and moves her own hands, to cover his, guiding them till they're on her breasts. She hears his sharp intake of breath, and lets go, so it's just his hands there, warm and cupping and then exploring. She tips her head back. _Oh._ She hasn't been touched like this in so long, and it's so _good_ -

A loud _sproing!_, then an even louder _BAM!_ and a sudden jolt and drop downward, making him yelp and sending her toppling forward onto him. Once they're able to struggle mostly upright, they see it: the recliner part of this side has snapped open, entirely of its own accord. Spencer tries to push the footrest back down with his legs, but it won't budge.

"You're right. This couch is definitely broken," he says solemnly.

They look at each other and start laughing.


End file.
